Chapter XXIII.—On Marriage.

Since pleasure and lust seem to fall under
marriage, it must also be treated of. Marriage is the first conjunction
of man and woman for the procreation of legitimate children.24212421 [He places the essence of
marriage in the chaste consummation itself, the first after lawful
nuptials. Such is the force of this definition, which the note in
ed. Migne misrepresents, as if it were a denial that second
nuptials are marriage.] Accordingly Menander the comic poet
says:—

“For the begetting of legitimate children,

I give thee my daughter.”

We ask if we ought to marry; which
is one of the points, which are said to be relative. For some must marry,
and a man must be in some condition, and he must marry some one in some
condition. For every one is not to marry, nor always. But there is a time
in which it is suitable, and a person for whom it is suitable, and an
age up to which it is suitable. Neither ought every one to take a wife,
nor is it every woman one is to take, nor always, nor in every way, nor
inconsiderately. But only he who is in certain circumstances, and such
an one and at such time as is requisite, and for the sake of children,
and one who is in every respect similar, and who does not by force or
compulsion love the husband who loves her. Hence Abraham, regarding his
wife as a sister, says, “She is my sister by my father, but not by
my mother; and she became my wife,”24222422Gen. xx. 12. teaching us that children of
the same mothers ought not to enter into matrimony. Let us briefly follow
the history. Plato ranks marriage among outward good things, providing
for the perpetuity of our race, and handing down as a torch a certain
perpetuity to children’s children. Democritus repudiates marriage
and the procreation of children, on account of the many annoyances thence
arising, and abstractions from more necessary things. Epicurus agrees,
and those who place good in pleasure, and in the absence of trouble and
pain. According to the opinion of the Stoics, marriage and the rearing
of children are a thing indifferent; and according to the Peripatetics,
a good. In a word, these, following out their dogmas in words, became
enslaved to pleasures; some using concubines, some mistresses, and the
most youths. And that wise quaternion in the garden with a mistress,
honoured pleasure by their acts. Those, then, will not escape the curse
of yoking an ass with an ox, who, judging certain things not to suit
them, command others to do them, or the reverse. This Scripture has
briefly showed, when it says, “What thou hatest, thou shalt not
do to another.”24232423Tob. iv. 15.

But they who approve of marriage say, Nature has adapted
us for marriage, as is evident from the structure of our bodies, which
are male and female. And they constantly proclaim that command,
“Increase and replenish.”24242424Gen. i. 28. And though this is the
case, yet it seems to them shameful that man, created by God, should be
more licentious than the irrational creatures, which do not mix with
many licentiously, but with one of the same species, such as pigeons
and ringdoves,24252425 [The offering of the purification
has a beautiful regard to the example of the turtle-dove; and the
marriage-ring may have been suggested by the ringdove, a symbol of
constancy in nature.] and creatures like them. Furthermore, they
say, “The childless man fails in the perfection which is
according to nature, not having substituted his proper successor in his
place. For he is perfect that has produced from himself his like, or
rather, when he sees that he has produced the same; that is, when that
which is begotten attains to the same nature with him who begat.”
Therefore we must by all means marry, both for our country’s
sake,
378for the succession of children, and as far as we are
concerned, the perfection of the world; since the poets also pity
a marriage half-perfect and childless, but pronounce the fruitful
one happy. But it is the diseases of the body that principally show
marriage to be necessary. For a wife’s care and the assiduity
of her constancy appear to exceed the endurance of all other relations
and friends, as much as to excel them in sympathy; and most of all, she
takes kindly to patient watching. And in truth, according to Scripture,
she is a needful help.24262426Gen. ii. 18. [A beautiful
tribute to the true wife.] The comic poet then, Menander,
while running down marriage, and yet alleging on the other side its
advantages, replies to one who had said:—

“I am averse to the thing,

For you take it awkwardly.”

Then he adds:—

“You see the hardships and the things which annoy you in it.

But you do not look on the advantages.”

And so forth.

Now marriage is a help in the case of those advanced in
years, by furnishing a spouse to take care of one, and by rearing
children of her to nourish one’s old age.

“For to a man after death his children bring renown,

Just as corks bear the net,

Saving the fishing-line from the
deep.”24272427 The
corrections of Stanley on these lines have been adopted. They occur in
the Choephoræ of Æschylus, 503, but may have been found in Sophocles, as the tragic poets borrowed from one another.

according to the tragic poet Sophocles.

Legislators, moreover, do not allow those who
are unmarried to discharge the highest magisterial offices. For
instance, the legislator of the Spartans imposed a fine not on
bachelorhood only, but on monogamy,24282428 i.e., not entering into a second marriage
after a wife’s death. But instead of μονογαμίου
some read κακογαμίου—bad
marriage. and late marriage, and single life. And the renowned
Plato orders the man who has not married to pay a wife’s maintenance
into the public treasury, and to give to the magistrates a suitable sum
of money as expenses. For if they shall not beget children, not having
married, they produce, as far as in them lies, a scarcity of men, and
dissolve states and the world that is composed of them, impiously doing
away with divine generation. It is also unmanly and weak to shun living
with a wife and children. For of that of which the loss is an evil, the
possession is by all means a good; and this is the case with the rest of
things. But the loss of children is, they say, among the chiefest evils:
the possession of children is consequently a good thing; and if it be so,
so also is marriage. It is said:—

“Without a father there never could be a child,

And without a mother conception of a child could not be.

Marriage makes a father, as a husband a mother.”24292429 [To be a mother, indeed, one must be first a wife; the woman who has a child out of wedlock is not entitled to this holy name.]

Accordingly Homer makes a thing to be earnestly prayed
for:—

“A husband and a house;”

yet not simply, but along with good agreement. For the marriage of
other people is an agreement for indulgence; but that of philosophers
leads to that agreement which is in accordance with reason, bidding
wives adorn themselves not in outward appearance, but in character; and
enjoining husbands not to treat their wedded wives as mistresses,
making corporeal wantonness their aim; but to take advantage of
marriage for help in the whole of life, and for the best
self-restraint.

Far more excellent, in my opinion, than the seeds of
wheat and barley that are sown at appropriate seasons, is man that is
sown, for whom all things grow; and those seeds temperate husbandmen
ever sow. Every foul and polluting practice must therefore be purged
away from marriage; that the intercourse of the irrational animals may
not be cast in our teeth, as more accordant with nature than human
conjunction in procreation. Some of these, it must be granted, desist
at the time in which they are directed, leaving creation to the working
of Providence.

By the tragedians, Polyxena, though being murdered, is
described nevertheless as having, when dying, taken great care to fall
decently,—

“Concealing what ought to be hid from the eyes of
men.”

Marriage to her was a calamity. To be
subjected, then, to the passions, and to yield to them, is the extremest
slavery; as to keep them in subjection is the only liberty. The divine
Scripture accordingly says, that those who have transgressed the
commandments are sold to strangers, that is, to sins alien to nature,
till they return and repent. Marriage, then, as a sacred image, must be
kept pure from those things which defile it.24302430 [A holy marriage, as here so beautifully defined,
was something wholly unknown to Roman and Greek civilization. Here we
find the Christian family established.] We are to rise from
our slumbers with the Lord, and retire to sleep with thanksgiving and
prayer,—

“Both when you sleep, and when the holy light comes,”

confessing the Lord in our whole
life; possessing piety in the soul, and extending self-control to the
body. For it is pleasing to God to lead decorum from the tongue to our
actions. Filthy speech is the way to effrontery; and the end of both is
filthy conduct.

Now that the Scripture counsels marriage, and allows
no release from the union, is expressly contained in the law, “Thou
shalt not put away thy wife, except for the cause of fornication;”
and it regards as fornication, the marriage of those separated while the
other is alive. Not to deck and adorn herself beyond what is becoming,
renders a wife free of calumnious suspicion, while she devotes herself
assiduously to prayers and supplications; avoiding frequent departures
from the house, and shutting herself up as far as possible from the
view of all not related to her, and deeming housekeeping of more
consequence than impertinent trifling. “He that taketh a woman
that has been put away,” it is said, “committeth adultery;
and if one puts away his wife, he makes her an adulteress,”24312431Matt. v. 32; xix. 9.
that is, compels her to commit adultery. And not only is he who puts
her away guilty of this, but he who takes her, by giving to the woman
the opportunity of sinning; for did he not take her, she would return
to her husband. What, then, is the law?24322432Lev. xx. 10; Deut. xxii. 22. In order to
check the impetuosity of the passions, it commands the adulteress to be
put to death, on being convicted of this; and if of priestly family, to be
committed to the flames.24332433Lev. xxi. 9. And the adulterer also is stoned to death, but
not in the same place, that not even their death may be in common. And
the law is not at variance with the Gospel, but agrees with it. How
should it be otherwise, one Lord being the author of both? She who has
committed fornication liveth in sin, and is dead to the commandments;
but she who has repented, being as it were born again by the change in her
life, has a regeneration of life; the old harlot being dead, and she who
has been regenerated by repentance having come back again to life. The
Spirit testifies to what has been said by Ezekiel, declaring, “I
desire not the death of the sinner, but that he should turn.”24342434Ezek. xxxiii. 11.
Now they are stoned to death; as through hardness of heart dead to the law
which they believed not. But in the case of a priestess the punishment
is increased, because “to whom much is given, from him shall more
be required.”24352435Luke. xii. 48.

Let us conclude this second book of the
Stromata at this point, on account of the length and number of
the chapters.

2421 [He places the essence of
marriage in the chaste consummation itself, the first after lawful
nuptials. Such is the force of this definition, which the note in
ed. Migne misrepresents, as if it were a denial that second
nuptials are marriage.]